LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has a long sloping tunnel at one end of the stadium. On Saturday night, as the stadium emptied, I walked up that tunnel alongside USC running back Silas Redd, who muttered to himself and shook his head.

Oregon had just defeated USC, 62-51.

There are two entrances near the end of the tunnel. The first goes to the visiting locker room, the other to the Trojans locker room. Bright red carpets, taped to the pavement with duct tape, lead into both. But before Redd slipped off behind the doors and the end of his night, I leaned over and asked him one question.

Do you want a rematch?

Mind you, Redd has had a lot of successful outings as a football player. Plenty where he scored two touchdowns. Lots where he's rushed for 92 or so yards as he did against the Ducks. But never has his gut been left rotting the way it was on Saturday after his team scored 51 points and left the field demoralized.

So does Redd want another ride in Chip Kelly's blender? Do the Trojans, with three losses, want to do what it's going to take to get another date with Oregon, this time likely at Autzen Stadium?

Saturday felt like a heavyweight boxing bout attended by 93,607 spectators. The stage was so big someone should have put ropes around the Coliseum. Nobody would have been the least bit surprised if there were ring girls between quarters, and a bell, and a ring announcer. Because as that final "0:01" melted off the clock and the teams converged at the center of the field, hugging, weary, soaked with grass stains and one another's sweat, I half expected promoter Don King would climb to the top of the stands shouting, "Reeeeeeeeematch!!!!"

I'd love to see Oregon-USC in the Pac-12 Conference championship game on Nov. 30. I don't want to see Arizona, which the Ducks already shut out 49-0. I don't want to see UCLA, which USC will undoubtedly handle in two weeks. I don't want to see that old foot-shuffling rube, Arizona State, which got knocked out in the first quarter against Oregon. In one month, at a new site, I want to see the home-and-home series between the Trojans and Ducks finalized.

Incidentally, I don't give a rip what the voters in the various Bowl Championship Series polls might think of a game with 113 points, or whether some Southeastern Conference fan who hasn't seen this much offensive firepower since Cam Newton defected believes about anemic West Coast defenses. This was a bona fide championship-caliber event with Oregon and USC trading uppercuts for four quarters.

None bigger than the ones Kenjon Barner threw in rushing for a single-game UO record 321 yards and five touchdowns. I looked over, standing a few feet from visiting LaMichael James on the Ducks sideline as Barner carried the ball on the run that broke James' rushing record (288), and James, now with the San Francisco 49ers, looked happy for his former teammate. Also, James looked ready to grab a helmet and pads and go have a blast again.

I know undefeated Notre Dame survived Pittsburgh in three overtimes. I know undefeated Alabama got a late touchdown and edged LSU 21-17. I know people believe in their bones that both those teams deserve a chance to play for it all. But I saw the hopelessness of Redd's gait on that walk, and his hollowed out eyes, and I don't think there's a football team in America more machine-like and scary-good than Oregon.

The unfinished business that Kelly talked about when he turned down the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last offseason?

It's this. Every play. Every possession. Every quarter. All of it, business getting finished.

Oh, I know, you think Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban is salivating along with every other SEC honk. I mean, "Those Ducks gave up 51 points!?" Well, I'd direct anyone who believes that Oregon (9-0) doesn't look headed to the national championship game to the line of bowl-game representatives who sat in the press box here, eating nachos and peanuts and leaving puddles of saliva on the sleeves of their bright-colored jackets.

They watched Redd run, and USC receivers Marqise Lee and Robert Woods turn acrobats, and quarterback Matt Barkley throw for 484 yards and five touchdowns. And they watched the Ducks zip up and down the field when it was their turn. And the representatives saw football, sure, but also droves of tourists, exposure and television ratings for their bowl games. And if I'm the Pac-12, with the new television network, I'd sure as sin want both of these teams to play once more this season.

Said Kelly: "Because of what Matt was doing and Marqise was doing and Robert was doing, we couldn't afford to have a, 'Well, let's rip this one up,' moment because if we did, we were going to get beat.

"There isn't a time when you look over and see No. 9 and No. 2, and No. 7 and say, 'We got this.'"

Instead, Oregon just kept doubling down, and coming up big. USC kept running to the ATM, and chasing its bets. And even as the Trojans piled up crooked numbers, and burned out the scoreboard bulbs, anyone who witnessed these teams trading knock-out blows ultimately realized that Oregon was getting clocked, but wasn't going to hit the canvas.

That mosh pit of respect at the finish spoke so honestly about this game. Players patted each other, and shook hands, and then the herd moved toward the tunnel with Redd smack in the middle.

The game ball in the Ducks locker room went to booster Phil Knight, in case anyone wants to know. His good friend and fellow booster, Ken O'Neil, had the football tucked beneath his arm as the pair roamed around outside the locker room, listening in on the post-game interviews and smiling.

I'll bet O'Neil would rush for 150 yards himself in Kelly's offense.

I also suspect those two guys have seen what you and I have observed about Oregon's program over the past four years. It's grown exponentially. The athletes are superior. The stuff Kelly's running, some of it derivatives of what he started with, other stuff new, is more potent. This machine is humming, and the challengers are all walking off in that slow shuffle, just like Redd.

"We do talk sometimes among the coaches about how far we've come as a program," Kelly said. "We say things like, 'Three or five years ago we couldn't have done this,' and stuff like that."

Last year the Ducks failed to pull off this very task.

So yeah, Saturday was Oregon's big moment. It was also Barner's Heisman Trophy moment. Reporters buzzed about it on the sidelines before the game was over. And when Barner emerged from the locker room, passing a folding table filled with Chick-fil-A boxes, he was swarmed by media and asked all about his big night.

It was the stuff happening quietly behind him, though, that I found most interesting.